Category: Film

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here, mostly because this has primarily been a place for keeping track of my acting endeavours (which have been put on the backburner for the foreseeable future). How are you doing?

As mentioned in my previous post, I’ve taken my filmmaking talents to the wonderful world of advertising, joining up with the ad house Clark Stanley (ClarkStanley.com). Aside from employing me, the fine folks at Clark Stanley have also produced the pilot for a web series that I’ve written and directed (very nice of them, I know).

What’s the web series? Oh, I’m glad you asked…

( Title design(s) by the oh-so talented Alexandra Cooney. )

“GRAVE CONCERNS tells the story of two men, Timothy Sellmeyer & Clifton B. Pluck, toiling away in the Wild West, working in the booming business of grave-digging.”

Aside from being two very handsome & talented actors, Tim Walker & Jeff Hanson are also good friends who I met shortly after moving to Toronto last October. I had wanted to come up with an idea to shoot with them for a long time, and it wasn’t until July that the idea for two gravediggers in the Wild West came to me.

The image of two men toiling away in the [traditionally romanticized] Old West & working at a shit job — simply enough: it made me laugh. I assure you, there’s more to the story than their occupation, but that’ll come later.

We shot in September, and I finished editing the pilot this past Thursday.

I say this with all the sincerity I can muster via blog post:

I have never been this creatively excited for a project in my life — I cannot wait to share GRAVE CONCERNS with you. The day for the pilot’s release is still a ways away as we hunt for series funding to get the full season made, but please stay tuned.

On the advertising side of things, I’m keeping busy, but there’s nothing I can report on until it’s done. Hold tight. Oh, I’m also workin’ on a new website.

Those of you who know me are well aware that I have a long-standing obsession with professional wrestling. It started when I was a child, continued through my teens, then, after high school, I sold my car and moved to Moncton, New Brunswick to pursue training in the squared circle.

After a week of my grappler-education, I called home from a terribly depressing pay phone at a Moncton strip mall, telling my parents I was quitting wrestling. Why? Long story short: my body sucks (bad knees, bad back) and I knew I didn’t stand a chance if my body was crapping-out on me already. The dream was over before it even began.

After a bit of career-experimentation (ie. working at Bluenotes for a year), I eventually found my way to acting, which I really enjoyed, and people told me I was good at. Acting eventually lead to filmmaking, and eventually, thanks to SAVING FACE, filmmaking brought me back, full-circle, to professional wrestling…

Our shoot consisted of seven days of straight shooting. It was a gruelling process for all involved (I owe many people on that crew many beers). Our final three days of shooting were in the Halifax Forum, where we would be shooting all of the wrestling scenes.

We spent hours setting up the ring, exhausted, but knowing it had to get done before the next day, and when it was, I started running the ropes, and all of a sudden I just started laughing my ass off. It hit me like a ton of bricks: this was the very definition of a dream come true.

The next couple of days, we had four professional wrestlers come in, all of whom I sincerely respect (and have long admired); they worked with us, we worked with them, and I was in absolute heaven getting tossed around.

Honestly, I could go on for hours about how much making this film meant to me, but I just want to say thank you to everyone who had a hand in helping me get to whatever point in my career that I needed to be at to say, “Hey, I don’t know if anyone’s gonna dig this, but I’m gonna go make this weird wrestling film anyway.”

There’s a lot of you who’ve contributed to my career, either directing me in a short, handing me a water bottle between takes, or just saying something nice (don’t forget you wonderful people who donated to the Saving Face IndieGogo), thank you for playing a part in allowing me to live this dream.

Struan Sutherland‘s THE HOLD UP is now online after a boisterous festival run, picking up awards and special mentions, all along the merry way!

The comedic short, features myself, Dave Rossetti, Pasha Ebrahimi, & Mike McLeod, and tells the tale of four aspiring criminals discovering that they have wildly conflicting, ludicrous opinions on how their bank robbery should go down.

Most recently, the short won Best Ensemble Cast at the Austin Comedy Short Film Fest.

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I’ve decided to do something fun: I’ll be hosting an acting workshop next month (Sunday March 15th & 22nd). I’ve called it WHAT WORKED FOR ME because it just that, a collection of things, big and small, that have worked for me in the acting profession.

This workshop will focus on self-promotion and auditioning technique. It is built to give actors at all levels the skills to (1) promote your work efficiently, by converting self-promotion into opportunities, and to then (2) capitalize on those opportunities with strong auditioning habits.

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There was a whole lot to love this year in the cinema including him up there, Monsieur Gustav H., AKA Ralph “the incredible” Fiennes in Wes Anderson‘s GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, which just so happens to be my number one favourite film of 2014!

Go ahead, throw your hipster jokes in my direction, I don’t give one damn and / or shit, GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL is straight-up magical (not to mention hilarious, and at times, oddly terrifying). Moving at the speed of a freight-train, anchored by Ralph Fiennes insanely, insanely entertaining and precise performance, this film just doesn’t stop with the magic. I know there’s a lot of people out there who just can’t do Wes Anderson, and I get it, I do, sometimes I also find his style overbears his substance, but GRAND BUDAPEST is the perfect marriage of the two and for me, feels like his best film yet.

Here is the remaining 9 films, in no particular order, that I loved oh-so dearly…

THE GUEST

NIGHTCRAWLER

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

WHIPLASH

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS

SNOWPIERCER

FRANK

ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE

CAST NO SHADOW

I think most of the films on my list have done their fair share of business (I’m looking at you, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY), so I’d like to encourage you to keep an eye out for CAST NO SHADOW, the Newfoundland feature film which cleaned up the awards at this year’s Atlantic Film Festival. It was honestly one of the best Canadian films I’ve ever seen. Head to their Facebook page and give ’em a like to keep track of their progress: https://www.facebook.com/castnoshadowmovie

WHAT I MISSED: INHERENT VICE, TWO DAYS ONE NIGHT, KUNG FU ELLIOT, DEAR WHITE PEOPLE, BORGMAN and a bunch of other stuff.

That’s it for 2014! It was a good one! Here’s hoping STAR WARS EP. 7 will be everything the child in me wants it to be and you’ll be seeing it on here next January.

Fresh off the heels of winning the Outlier Film Fest’s Audience Award for Best Short Film (link), SAVING FACE, now has a teaser trailer! I wrote, directed and starred in this weird wrestling film, so enjoy this damn thing!

Still a few months away from a web release, so stay tuned to here for more festival news!